a little less conversation, a little more action

i'm feeling a little better, with special thanks to some conversations with a couple of friends who have been in similar frames of mind post grad school. i think i'm feeling better about not trying to discover some amazing path-to-success life plan, and just am feeling more content taking it step by step (ooh bab-eee, gonna get to you girrrrrl).

and what comes with this change of heart?? productivity!! amazing! i've started sewing my new version of plush nesting toys (mumlors). felt really good to put off doing the dishes and get making stuff. i will post pics soon.

other projects that still need tending to:

astro baby shirts ... i have done rough text for sun, moon, and rising sign and will get back to designs soon. i registered an etsy shop but nothing is there yet. i still need to make a logo.

i registered an etsy shop for the mumlors too. once i make more i'll get that shop going.

i'm doing some vector illustrations of the mumlors and olympians for my upcoming show in november.

fondant icing -- ok maybe not at all a "professional" ambition but i still want to try it out...

in SAM news:
i think it's time to start working on getting him out of our bed. i think i'll get the ferber sleep book from the library and give it a read. right now sam seems dependent on night time feeding, pacifier, AND cuddling to get to sleep. even if we're ok with that for a number of months to come, i feel the need for an exit strategy. gonna move the crib back into our room. we moved it out when sam was about four month's old per the doc's suggestion, but it sort of seems like that was what led to him always in our bed instead of sometimes in our bed. i think i will try positioning the crib like a co-sleeper thing, right next to the bed, so we can still be close, but then we can forego the absolutely ridiculous booby trapped pillow fort we install whenever he is sleeping in our bed (pillow walls with jingly/noisy toys on top so we can delay his actions and get to him before he crawls off the bed).

question for you moms out there: how did you stop night nursing? or did it eventually just come to an end? when did you wean? did you lead it or did you let your child decide?

Pablito!

Sam met his friend Pablo for the first time today! Pablo is the nephew of our good friend Esteban. We went over to visit Pablo's parents, Jose & Maria, to give them some of the baby things Sam has outgrown. Pablo is three months and such a happy sweet little guy! So glad to meet him! He smiles a lot and seems very at peace.

It's so amazing how fast the time moves. I can barely imagine what it was like when Sam was three months old. These kids just grow up so fast!!

INFP "QUESTOR"

Feeling extra lost and moody these days. Took a Career Test online (http://www.careertest.net/cgi-bin/q.pl). Here are my results:

INFP (introvert, intuition, feeling, perceiving)

Personality type results

EI: 9 out of 17
Extrovert |-------------------------------------------------| Introvert
                                  |
                                 52%
SN: 12 out of 17
Sensation |-------------------------------------------------| iNtuition
                                           |
                                          70%
TF: 10 out of 17
Thinking  |-------------------------------------------------| Feeling
                                     |
                                    58%
JP: 10 out of 17
Judging   |-------------------------------------------------| Perceiving
                                     |
                                    58%


Description:

INFP's feel internal turmoil when they find
themselves in situations in which there is conflict between their inner
code of ethics and their relationships with others. They feel caught
between pleasing others and maintaining their own integrity. Their
natural tendency to identify with others, compounded with their
self-sacrificial dispositions, tends to leave them confused as to who
they really are. Their quiet personalities further feeds their feelings
of depersonalization. The INFP's quest for self-identity then seems
even more alluring — but increasingly impossible to attain.

                        

As with all NFs, the INFP will feel lost and perplexed at stressful
times. As stress builds, INFP's become disconnected from their own
personality and perceived place in life. They will lose sight of who
they are in relation to time and place. They may not make basic
observations, while instead they will focus on the more abstract and
symbolic meanings of a particular interaction. This can sometimes
baffle those who expect more direct communication and a fairly concrete
relationship.

Careers

This lists represent careers and jobs people of your type tend to enjoy doing. The job requirements are similar to the personality tendencies of your personality type. It is important to remember that this is not a list of all the jobs possible. And it is very important to remember that people can, and frequently do, fill jobs that are dissimilar to their personality... this happens all the time...and sometimes works out quite well.

information-graphics...designer
college professor
researcher
legal mediator
social worker
holistic health...practitioner
occupational therapist
diversity manager
human resource...development specialist
employment development...specialist
minister/priest/rabbi
missionary
psychologist
writer/poet/novelist
journalist
editor/art director
organizational development...specialist

Visit with Aunt Sarah N!

Sam's Aunt Sarah N. had a brief visit on her way from Texas to Ohio. She is as traveling physical therapist so she's on the go a lot. We are often a fairly convenient stopping point (Indiana -- crossroads of america!) so that's neat.

Here are some images from her visit.

Today has been pretty lazy. I'm a bit moody and maybe I'll write another post to whine and complain and what not. Sam is taking an extra long evening nap, so I don't know what that will mean about bed time. Meg and I made a really good and really cheesy Soyrizo lasagna (yumm), so I'm sitting in front of the computer stuffed and contemplating whether I have the energy to go wash dishes. Meg, Sam, and I did get out for a walk earlier, and though the forecast (thank you weather.com) said there was 0% chance of rain during the time of our walk, a thunderstorm rolled on in and we had to run back with Sam in the stroller. Luckily Sam thought it was great fun and he giggled and laughed the whole way back while Meg and I tried to run in flip-flops.

Goofing around with Aunt Sarah (N)

Phoning Home

Learning to Walk

Reading his favorite barnyard flipbook (yes he has more than one)

Dinner last night at McGraw's (honey mustard salmon for me, pork chop for Aaron)

Sam is usually a jolly goof ball when we go out to eat.

Brother and Sister

11 Months Old!

Sam is embarking on his twelfth month of life!!
At 11 months old Sam:

• Crawls all around, mostly on hands and knees, sometimes still on his tummy. He's fast, too.
  
• Loves to "cruise" and is always pulling himself up to a stand and walking around the furniture. He also has a walker toy that Aaron calls his "lawnmower" and he likes to use that to walk around too. He often cruises along a piece of furniture, stops mid-way and holds his arm up for me to come grab his hand and walk with him.
  
• Has three teeth, and seems to be working on his fourth.
• Sleeps well for a week or two, then poorly for a week or so. Still attributing this to teething.
• Sleeps exclusively in our bed. Yup.
• Has a schedule! And if it is disrupted things get pretty rocky.
• Points at things to tell me what he wants.
• Waves hello and goodbye and says "bah" for bye.
• Can find your nose if you ask him to.
• Has a new word that is between "gum" and "gup" that we first thought was him trying to say "dog" but he uses it for many things. It's a very versatile word.
• Loves to eat. He loves Cheerios and cheese and bread.
• Loves water, including bath time and playing in his wading pool, and playing in the fountains on campus.
• Does the "mom dive" which makes me feel super special. Sometimes when someone else is holding him and I come and stand next to them, he dives for me. Aaron labeled it the mom dive.
• The aforementioned mom dive is important to me because he also has figured out how to push away from me while I'm holding him, letting me know he wants to get down on the ground and do things himself.
• Loves playing with wooden hammers (has several for various toys like a xylophone).
• Likes to throw things.
• Is becoming more like a kid and less like a baby everyday.
  

And it just so happens that Sam was baptized in the church of his paternal family today, too, on his 11 month birthday. He did really well though did get a little scared when the stranger (Pastor) put the water on his head. Aaron and I are not members of the church so his Aunt Sarah Nemec is his sponsor. Here she is holding her nephew (his Aunt Meg is pictured with us too, since she witnessed the baptism also).

12:30 Saturday night

So today was a lovely day -- went out to breakfast, went to some garage sales, hung out with the family. But Sam's schedule got off, and now that we have a schedule, when we get OFF schedule everything gets crazy. Meaning, a crazy tired hyper boy who is a lot of fun but stressful too. So he missed his morning nap, took a long nap at his normally shorter second nap time. Kind of missed his solid food dinner, took a bath, got into his pjs, would NOT sleep. So he crawled around on hands and knees (which he does wonderfully now) like a maniac, switching from sit, crawl, stand and fell over a few times. I tried again to get him to sleep -- no dice -- so I let him crawl around again. He totally bumped his head on the desk drawer handle, leaving a mark and a paranoid mom (sam cried for a brief moment, and is totally normal), and then we had some solid foods, a little tylenol, and he fell right asleep (pretty much). Oi.

So then I got my time, as my time begins when he goes to bed. I really have wanted to try messing with fondant icing and making fancy cakes, so I thought I would try it for Sam's first B-day. Ok, so it wouldn't be the cake he ate probably, but still sounded like a fun project. I found directions to make a marshmallow fondant online and got my marshmallows, Crisco, and confectioners sugar. Since Sam didn't get to bed until nearly 11 (!!) I didn't begin my project until LATE. I don't have a microwave so I double-boiled the marshmallows. I greased up my table surface. Now, I had bought a great big new thing of Crisco (and I never use Crisco) but found some open Crisco in my cupboard that had not expired, so I used that. After my marshmallows melt and I have my hands slathered in crisco and I'm kneading all this crazy sugar goo into a dough I think "hmm, something smells funny". Too late now! I continue my wacky dough-making and pack it up and put it away. I do a little googling and sure enough, I bet my Crisco had gone bad. So I had my table, hands, and icing slathered in rancid vegetable fat. Yummy. Guess I get to toss out the bag of marshmallows, confectioners sugar, and hour of work. Well, at least I now know what it's like to knead sugar into dough. I'll have to get some more and try again soon. Wish me luck.

My hands still smell funny from the bad Crisco. Yuck.

what's up

Just felt like rambling, so here's a rambling post...

Sam is growing up faster and faster. In size he's relatively the same. Still big and round but not growing at the fast pace he had been. His feet are getting bigger though, which is good since he will have to stand and walk at some point. He now can move around the living room, holding on to the furniture, and when he gets to the end he raises his arm for me to come get him. It's cute. Tonight he also started trying to push up to his feet in the middle of the floor doing this tabletop sort of move, so that's funny. He has toppled over a couple of times, but nothing serious yet. He is always on the go. He walks on his tip-toes. I think maybe because he started walking in this walker where he could only touch the ground with his toes. Hopefully that won't make walking too hard for him.

I am so much more appreciative of my stay-at-home-mom status than I had been before my teaching job. Of course, I am more comfortable being a mom now so it's a little easier I guess. My days are very much housewife/mother stuff. I take care of Sam, I do laundry, dishes, sweep...There are more chores I should get to though and right now there are dishes and laundry that could be done... Sam and I have definitely found our rhythms and it's funny how much easier it is when you have a schedule. Of course, our schedule is easily disrupted if we don't get to nap time on time. If we don't start his nap on time, he probably won't nap, and then night sleep is thrown off and the next day is off and all of that. So even if we have a schedule I have to remain flexible. But I'm less complainy because I'm just happy to be able to do what I want to do -- be home with my son.

I still worry, of course. Oh, about everything I guess. Some thoughts currently in my head:

I don't know how to wean him. I don't know when to wean him. He is coming up on a year. I never thought I would nurse longer than that. But now I don't know. I suppose I will stop daytime nursing. Stopping nighttime nursing sounds hard though. I think most of my readers nursed beyond the year mark, right? Any thoughts? Of course I do resort to the boob as means of calming pretty quickly simply because I know it works...there may be plenty of other ways to lull the guy into a sleepy state and calm midnight wakes....

Birthday cake. Anybody have any good baby's first birthday cake recipes?? I'm not all that uptight about the guy having sugar, but I'm sure there's a healthier in-between and I know some of you are definite foodies...

And of course I still just don't know what to do in my professional life. The thing is, this whole mom thing is pretty all-encompassing. Right now, I don't feel a need to pursue a career to make my days meaningful or interesting. Really, paid employment feels just like that -- a means of getting paid. However, I don't want work to be just that. I want it to be more. And I absolutely hate that I'm still dealing with this at the cusp of 30. I don't think I have the drive and motivation (dare I say skill, talent, ability) to gain financially from my artwork, and that doesn't really bother me since I don't really care about my art right now. Really, right now I'm just pretty into being a mom. In the next couple of weeks I'm going to an info session about the nursing program at the local community college. I know it's not a great profession to pursue just because of practicality, but I figure a little more information can't hurt.

Oh, and I told myself that once I lost my pregnancy weight I wasn't allowed to think of myself as fat. But, I'm feeling extra blubbery these days. Pregnancy has definitely left me with a little extra in the love-handle/muffin-top region, and I do indeed have a tummy, though I always have. But really, I'm eating tons of sweets and since I'm home all the time I'm munching all the time, and I'm not getting enough exercise...if I get myself doing that stuff I'd probably feel better all around. In general, though, becoming a mom has done wonders for my body image. Even if my body is not all it could be, I am so much more forgiving of it. So that's cool.

Well, I guess I'll end here. Oh, here are some pics of more summer fun stuff...